Combines Mac Don 36 draperIJ

[shellman]

Can't help you with the header questions, but would recomment that you have the float option on the combine when running any head that utilizes guage wheels. If you don,t have this automatic feature the float sensor price is about $60.00, installs in the header lift block on top of the axle. Be sure to shut off the accumulator before opening the system up.

 

[John_W]

If your cutting grain in the Palouse with a hillside combine the draper header may not carry grain uphill very well. That was a problem with the old hillside pull combines and the reason they alway tried to run with the header uphill from the combine. I have had old timer talk about riding on the back of the header and using sticks to poke the draper to get the crop to feed. You may need some deeper flights_sticks on the draper.

 

[J]

I worked on a custom cutting crew last summer and my boss rented a macdon 36' for a couple of days. We were in some weedy wheat for part of one day, that header would feed so even that ther was no comparison to the 1010 rigid ones we were running on 2388. With the 36' could go faster than the 30' rigid in weeds. the machine could handle the estra 6' only problem was unloading on the go with out an exta extended augar. Also the new headers the adapter does not work as well as an older adapter model they made. My boss really likes the header but not sure about justifying the cost, specially on trading in machines. Also he didn't know how it would work out for transporting in the back of the grain trucks. His hitch length on the trailers might be too short he thought. Well hope this helps.

 

[Case]

Hello. Been checking on your question all winter to see if anyone had any good or bad to say about the MacDon. Well we decided to get 2 36' They got here a week ago. We just got started a week ago here in central SD. We run a 2188 and 2388 and are in some heavy winter wheat was runnig 63 bushel, you can sure tell that extra 6 foot on the 21 but not so bad on 2388. Unloading on the go has been no problem, we was worried about that but are not much wider than our 30's were. We had some troubles the first day but most of it was the setup crew, they did'nt do so hot of a job. The service rep's are coming out when we start again to check them over and see how things are going. We orderd them with the transport on them, i guess once you figure everything out they are pretty simple. Still don't know about the durability though. How has your harvest run been so far not so good down south i hear, alot of mud. Well hope this helps and if you hear any thing about them let me know. Thank You

 

[Body]

The MacDon drapers are something else. Usually, you can go from running a combine at a given speed, say 5 mph with a 30' Auger, to running a 36' MacDon draper at the same speed. The combine will use less fuel per acre. Be careful though because you really should buy the correct model for what you want to do with it. There are the 962 and 963 models which are good for cutting wheat and barley (off the ground). I do not advise cutting on the ground with either the 962 or 963. The 973 is more advanced and can cut off the ground or you can cut right on the ground (soybeans, etc). The 974 is the flexible draper. You can lock the flex out very easily to cut off the ground or unlock the flex and cut right on the ground. With adapters, the 873 has the best float I've seen. THe 872 is OK but not as good. If you will be cutting on the ground make sure to get the AHH option, it is called a Float Optimizer.